The car came out of nowhere

It shot past Bolan on the shoulder, racing down the ramp, and he had only a fleeting impression of gray primer. It hurtled down the line of idling vehicles and made a kamikaze rush straight toward the roadblock.

“Down!” Bolan snarled.

Both James and Encizo reacted without hesitation. The Cuban sprawled flat in the back of the minivan as James threw himself between the front seats, landing next to Encizo.

The vehicle-based improvised explosive device detonated. Shrapnel cut through the air like steel rain and shattered the vehicle’s windows, spraying glass shards on the Stony Man team.

Shaken by the concussive impact and sudden violence, Bolan pushed himself into place behind the steering wheel and grabbed the AK-104 carbine.

Welcome to Baghdad, he thought grimly.

Appointment in Baghdad
Don Pendleton

Mack Bolan ®

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

—Ernest Hemingway,

1899–1961

War is a special kind of hell. There are no winners.

—Mack Bolan

For the men and women of the U.S. armed forces

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Nathan Meyer for his contribution to this work.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER ONE

Toronto, Ontario, Canada: 0146

The mosque had been defiled.

Mack Bolan studied the building. A place of worship had been transformed into a forum for hate. A place where the devout and faithful had once found expression had now been subverted into a recruiting ground for blasphemers killing in the name of religion.

The rest of the street lay quiet.

Earlier that evening, Bolan had pored over an architect’s blueprints of the structure procured for him by computer expert Carmen Delahunt at Stony Man Farm. Like most of the buildings in that area of downtown Toronto, the old building was aesthetically unappealing. The mosque was not beautifully gilded, nor did it possess a dome and minaret. Only the placard sign announced what the squat bricked building housed.

A red flag had risen immediately when ownership of the building was traced to Syrian business magnate Monzer al-Kassar. The Syrian’s dealing had been on Stony Man’s radar for almost a decade. However, the Syrian facilitator had such a diverse, worldwide portfolio that his mere ownership of certain real estate was not considered a primary cause for action in and of itself. But that had all changed.

The mosque occupied two floors of a four-story brownstone in the run-down neighborhood. On the street level there was a Korean grocery store, and the top floor housed five apartments rented to people, as far as Delahunt could find, who had no connection to the radical activities going on beneath their feet.

Bolan looked at the dive watch on his wrist. It read 0148. Gary Manning, the Canadian-born Phoenix Force commando, would be in his overwatch position by now. Bolan had requested the operator as a readily available asset already long familiar with the Toronto area. For this brief operation Manning monitored Toronto police communications and stood guard against the possibility of outside forces arriving after Bolan had penetrated the building.

Bolan slid the earpiece into place so that the microphone was resting against his cheekbone. He placed a single finger against the device and powered it on.

“You ready?” he asked.

Manning answered immediately. “Copy that, Striker. I’m up. I’ve got eyes on your approach and the area. Radio chatter is good.”

“Let’s do it.”

Bolan eased open the door to his nondescript Toyota 4-Runner and stepped out into the street. It was very late winter in Toronto and still cold. There was dirty slush on the ground, and everything was cast in a gray pallor. Streetlights formed staggered ponds of nicotine-yellow illumination. In the building facing the street a single light burned in the window of the third floor.

Bolan closed the door to the 4-Runner and fixed the stocking cap on his head before walking to the rear hatch of the vehicle. Despite the chill bite in the air, he left the zipper to his heavy leather jacket undone. The deadly Beretta 93-R hung in a shoulder holster customized to accommodate the sound suppressor threaded onto its muzzle.

He opened the rear hatch, reached down and pulled up the lid over the compartment that held his spare tire and jack. He moved it to the side and pulled out a hard, plastic-alloy box of dark gray. His fingers quickly worked the combination locks and the case popped open.

Inside, snugly held in place by cut foam, was a Heckler & Koch MP-5 SD-3, the silenced version of the special operations standby weapon. Bolan pulled out the submachine-gun, inserted a magazine, chambered a 9 mm Parabellum round and then secured a nylon sling to the front sight and buttstock attachment points. He thumbed the selector switch to 3-round-burst mode. When he finished he shrugged his jacket off his right arm, slung the weapon over his shoulder so that it hung down by his side and slipped the sleeve back into place.

Bolan slammed the rear hatch shut and looked around the quiet street. No one moved in the early morning hours. He clicked on the alarm to the Toyota and shut the automatic locks as he crossed the street.

He turned left, away from the mosque set above the Korean grocery store. A used-furniture store stood next to the store and beside that was a run-down apartment building six stories high. On the other side of the tenement, next to the intersection, was a tire store.

Bolan turned down the sidewalk next to the apartment building and circled the tire store, entering a narrow alley that ran behind the businesses fronting the street. He slowed his pace as he entered the alley, senses alert as he neared the target.

Bolan kept his gaze roving as he moved closer to the back door of the mosque’s building. A couple of empty beer bottles stood among wads of crumpled newspapers. It was too cold for there to be any significant smell. Slush clung to the lee of brick walls in greater mounds than out on the open street. Several patches of slush were stained sickly yellow. Halfway down the alley Bolan drew even with the building housing the mosque.

The devout entered the building through the rear entrance, avoiding the grocery store all together. An accordion-style metal gate was locked into place over a featureless wooden door, and a padlock gleamed gold in the dim light. Bolan approached the security gate and pulled a lock-pick gun from his jacket pocket.

He inserted the prong blades into the lock mechanism and squeezed the lever. The lock popped open. Bolan reached up with his free hand and yanked the accordion gate open. The scissor-gate slid closed with a clatter that echoed in the silent, cold alley. He quickly inserted the lock-pick gun into the doorknob and worked the tool.

He heard the lock disengage with a greasy click and put the device back into his jacket pocket. He grasped the cold, smooth metal of the doorknob and it turned easily under his hand. He made to push the door inward and it refused to budge. Dead bolts.

Bolan swore under his breath. He placed his left hand on the door and pressed inward. From the points of resistance he estimated there were at least three independent security locks attached to the inside of the door.

His mind instantly ran the calculations for an explosive entry. He factored in the metal of the bolt shafts, their attachment points on the door frame and the density of the door itself. He was able to sum up exactly how much plastique he would need and ascertain the most efficient placement on the structure.

But Bolan had no intention of blowing the door of a building in downtown Toronto. Not until he was exactly sure of what he would find inside. He was well versed in various forms of surreptitious entry and had been thoroughly schooled in the techniques of urban climbing, or buildering as it was sometimes called.

Bolan lifted his head and looked up. As per the city’s fire code, a means of emergency egress had been placed on the outside of the building to aid occupants above the ground floors. The fire escape was directly above the back door and ended in an enclosed metal cage around the ladder on the second floor.

“Change of plans,” Bolan said into his throat mike.

“I’m going up.”

“Your call, Striker,” Manning answered. “Everything is good at the moment.”

Bolan looked around the alley. He thought briefly of pushing over one of the large green garbage bins and climbing on top of it to reach the fire escape. He rejected the idea as potentially attracting too much attention. He looked around, evaluating the building like a rock climber sizing up a cliff face. Above the first floor five uniform windows ran the width of the building along each floor.

Bolan made his decision and zipped his jacket. It would keep him from getting to his concealed weapons quickly, but it was a necessary risk if he were to attempt this climb. He opened the scissor-gate again and grasped it at the top. He stuck the toe of one boot into a diamond-shaped opening and lifted himself off the ground. He placed his other hand against the edge of the building, using the strength of his legs to support him as he released one handhold on the gate and reached for a gutter drain set into the wall.

He grabbed hold firmly and held on before moving his other hand over. The drain was so chill it almost seemed to burn the flesh on the palm of his hand and fingers. He pulled himself up despite the great strain of the awkward position and grasped the vertical drain with both hands. He moved his right leg and stuck his toe between the drainpipe and the brick wall, jamming it in as tightly as he could.

Once he was braced Bolan pulled his boot from the scissor-gate and set it on top of the door frame. It was slick along the top and he was forced to knock aside a minor buildup of slush along the narrow lip. Confident with the placement of that foot, the soldier pushed down hard against the lip at the top of the door frame and shimmed himself farther up the drainpipe.

Bolan’s muscles burned, and he forced himself to breathe in through his nose. Squeezing the frigid, slick pipe tightly, he inched his way up until his knee touched the second-story window ledge.

His body stretched into a lopsided X, Bolan carefully pressed his hands against the windowpane and pushed upward, testing to see if the window was open. He met resistance and realized it was locked. Bolan eased his head back and looked up. Light shone from the window on the floor directly above his position. Above that the fourth floor was as dark as the second. Directly above that was the roof.

From his careful study of the architect’s blueprints Bolan knew the internal staircase rose up to a roof access doorway. He debated breaking the glass on the window and working the lock mechanism from inside. He decided the risk was simply too great and made a decision to keep climbing.

“This is a no go,” he whispered. “I’m going all the way up.”

“Roger,” Manning answered.

He chose this route for the same reason he had decided not to use the fire escape. The metal structure was as dated as the building and ran directly next to the softly lit third-floor window; he feared the occupants in the lighted room would be aware of the rattle as he climbed and be alerted to his presence.

Decision made, he shimmed his way up to the third floor despite the toll the physical exertion was taking on him. Bolan was in exceptional physical shape, but the task of urban climbing was extremely arduous. Hand over hand and toehold to toehold, the soldier ascended the outside of the building, working himself into position by the third-floor window.

Bolan paused. He could hear the murmur of voices and sensed shadowed movements beyond the blind, but not enough for him to gather any intelligence. Moving carefully to diminish any sound of his passing, Bolan climbed the rest of the way up the building.

He rolled over the edge and dropped over the low rampart onto the tar-patched roof. He rose swiftly, unzipping his jacket and freeing the MP-5 submachine-gun. Exhaust conductors for the building’s central air formed a low fence of dull aluminum around the free-standing hutch housing the door to the fire stairs.

Bolan crossed the roof to the side opposite his ascent and reached the door. He tried the knob, found it locked and quickly worked his lock-pick gun on the simple mechanism.

“All right,” Bolan said. “I’m going inside.”

“Be careful,” Manning’s voice said across the distance.

Bolan glanced quickly around to see if the occupants of any of the other nearby buildings had witnessed his climb. He saw no evidence of either them or Manning in his overwatch position and ducked into the building, leaving the door open behind him.

The Executioner descended into darkness.

CHAPTER TWO

Bolan moved down the stairs and deeper into the building. He moved past the fire door leading to the fourth-floor apartments and down toward the two levels housing the mosque.

NSA programs had intercepted calls originating in the An Bar province of western Iraq with their terminus in this area of Toronto. Official procedures had been followed and contact with Ottawa made in the offices of both the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, known as CSIS.

Because the intercepted cell-phone call had been made to the twenty-seven-year-old son of a Syrian diplomat stationed in Canada’s capital, the response from the government security services had been to decline the request for mutual cooperation. Subsequent investigations made by CSIS had concluded that the foreign jihadists were not threats domestically and served only in administrative and supportive roles to insurgents operating in the Middle East, much as American representatives of the Sinn Fein had served nonviolently to facilitate IRA activities during the 1970s.

The Canadian position became an official posture of low-key overwatch. The mosque in question would remain unmolested.

To an embattled and besieged America, the Damascus-Toronto-Ramadi connection represented a treasure trove of information and a clear and present danger. The Hiba Bakr, who ran the center for Islamic studies was a known Whabbist, and the Syrian diplomat in question was a man frequently associated with the top levels in the Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyya, or the Syrian Air Force Intelligence known as the IMJ.

The IMJ had evolved into Syria’s most covert and ruthless intelligence agency and was, despite its moniker, not primarily concerned with gathering intelligence for the nation’s air force. Hafez al-Assad, the former president of Syria, had once commanded the air force and upon his assumption of power in 1970 had frequently turned away from the nation’s other three intelligence services in favor of one filled with men he personally knew and had in most cases appointed himself.

As Syria, like Saddam’s Iraq, was a Baathist state, IMJ’s internal operations had often involved operations against elements of Islamist opposition domestically. Externally, international operations had focused on the exportation and sponsorship of terrorist acts and causes the regime was sympathetic to, such as interference in the internal politics of Lebanon. Its agents operated from Syrian embassies and in the branch offices of Syria’s national airline. Dozens of terrorist actions had been attributed to them, including the attempted bombing of an Israeli airliner at London’s Heathrow Airport in April of 1986.

The IMJ’s position as favored attack dog had not changed with the death of Hafez al-Assad and the ascendancy of his son, Bashar.

Most importantly for Stony Man, the IMJ had been at the spearhead of the pipeline operation moving foreign fighters and equipment into western Iraq. Even if the Toronto cell was a passive operation, its communications, records and computer files could prove to be vital. Two days earlier a known courier, monitored by the CIA as an informational node between disparate jihadist cells, had disappeared after disembarking a plane in Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.

The runner’s face had shown up in a routine situation report filed by an Army counterintelligence unit working out of the Pentagon and in close liaison with the Defense Intelligence Agency. The report had put him outside an extremist mosque mostly unpopular with the larger Toronto Muslim community. Stony Man had been put on alert.

Mack Bolan had once again been placed at the sharp end.

The MP-5 SD-3 was up and at the ready in his grip as he ghosted down the staircase toward the third-floor landing. Intelligence targets were worth more alive than dead. However, as had been the case with al-Qaeda-in-Iraq’s leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, it was often more expedient to simply take them out when other means could not be readily facilitated. In this case a snatch operation under the eyes of CSIS had been deemed imprudent and traditional American assets too much of a potential political liability.

Bolan stepped softly off the staircase and stopped by the interior door on the narrow landing. From his check of the blueprints Bolan knew the third floor housed offices, a small kitchen and bedroom apartments while the second floor, directly above the grocery store, was a wide-open place of worship housing prayer mats, a lectern and screens to separate male and female faithful.

Bolan tried the knob to the fire door. It turned easily under his hand and he pulled it open, keeping the MP-5 submachine-gun up and at the ready. The door swung open smoothly, revealing a dark stretch of empty hall. Bolan stepped into the hallway and let the fire door swing shut behind him. He caught it with the heel of his boot just before it made contact with the jamb and gently eased it back into place.

Down the hallway, in the last room, a bar of light shone from underneath a closed door. Bolan heard indistinct voices coming from behind it, too muffled to make out clearly. Occasionally a bark of laughter punctuated the murmurs. The soldier stalked down the hall. Prudence dictated clearing each room he passed before he put those doorways at his back, but it was an unrealistic expectation for a lone operator in Bolan’s circumstance.

He eased into position beside the closed door and went down on one knee. Keeping his finger on the trigger of the MP-5, Bolan pulled a preassembled fiber-optic camera tactical display from his inside jacket pocket. He placed the coiled borescope cable on the ground and unwound it from the CDV display.

It was awkward working with only his left hand, but the voices on the other side of the door were clearly audible and speaking in what he thought was Arabic, though Bolan’s own skill in that language was low enough that it might have been Farsi. He turned on the display with an impatient tap of his thumb and then slid the cable slowly through the slight gap under the door.

The display reflected the shifting view as Bolan pushed the fiber-optic camera into position. A brilliant light filled the screen, and the display self-adjusted to compensate for the brightness. A motionless ceiling fan came into focus and Bolan twisted the cable so that the camera no longer pointed directly up at the ceiling.

A modest kitchen set twisted around on the slightly oval-shaped picture, and Bolan could clearly distinguish four men sitting around the table. All wore neutral colored clothes and sported beards, except for a younger man seated to the left, whose facial hair was dark but sparse and whispery.

Bolan was able to identify all of the men by the photographs that had been included in his mission workups. One man was Hiba Bakr, the imam of the Toronto mosque, a radical Whabbist cleric with ties to the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood. Sixty-three years old, veteran of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan where he had served as spiritual adviser to the mujahideen, Bakr was a man intimately plugged into the international jihadist network, and had been for decades. His fiery rhetoric and extreme interpretation of the Koran had earned him followers among the disaffected Muslim youth of the area and the interest, albeit passively, of the RCMP.

The next man at the table was the youth with the wispy beard. Bolan identified him as Aram Mohammed Hadayet. It was his cell-phone calls that had been intercepted. An automatic pistol sat on the kitchen table in front of the youth. He listened as the cleric spoke, but his eyes kept shifting to the pistol on the table.

Next to Hadayet sat the man who had so excited the DIA—Walid Sourouri. A known graduate of al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan under the Taliban, Sourouri had impressed his trainers with his nondescript demeanor and language capabilities. No glorious death by suicide for this warrior. Instead he was employed to help the networks circumvent the technical superiority of Western intelligence agencies by keeping things primitively simple. Sitting at the imam’s kitchen table was the foot messenger of al Qaeda.

The third man was Raneen Ogedi, a blunt-featured man with a large reputation within the intelligence community. It was a gruesome reputation that had somehow failed to capture the attention of the news media for one reason or another. Despite this, Bolan realized he had stumbled upon a killer from the Iraqi A-list of wanted men.

Ogedi was a former cell commander of Saddam’s fedayeen, and an operator who had exploited his Syrian intelligence contacts to funnel in foreign fighters during the earlier stages of the American occupation and to later on target Iraqi consensus government Shiite officials in hopes of exacerbating a civil war. He had been a virulent Baathist until the fall of Saddam, after which he had suddenly found his Muslim faith again, most specifically its very radical and extreme fringe elements.

The man was almost never accompanied by less than a squad of Syrian-trained bodyguards, but Bolan saw no evidence of them in the kitchen. Like the youth Hadayet, Ogedi had a weapon positioned in front on him on the kitchen table. The wire-stock of the Skorpion machine pistol had been collapsed, and the automatic weapon was barely larger than a regular handgun.

The resolution on the borescope was state-of-the-art, and Bolan was able to make out several books on the table as well as the weapons. One was a copy of the Koran, another a modern arms book and the third a U.S. Army munitions manual.

Bakr was speaking directly to Hadayet, his words impassioned. The youth nodded in agreement and muttered something in a low voice. The cleric’s blunt finger tapped the worn copy of the Koran for emphasis, and Sourouri nodded in enthusiastic agreement. His bulky parka fell open when he did, and Bolan got a flash of the nylon strap supporting the man’s shoulder holster.

Out of the jumble of conversation Bolan suddenly heard several words he recognized from his intel briefings at Stony Man Farm. Someone said Monzer al-Kassar’s name, which he’d already known. Then Hadayet said a different name: Scimitar.

The code name was cliché but iconic and was used as the calling card of a man believed to be at the center of the web of an international network of violent jihadist and criminal enterprises that stretched across the Middle East and southwest Asia.

Bolan slowly pulled his borescope out from under the lip of the door. He coiled the fiber-optic camera cable back up into a tight loop and attached it behind the heads-up display with a little Velcro strap designed for the purpose. He slid the device into the inside pocket of his jacket and shifted the H&K MP-5 SD-3 around.

Gary Manning’s deep voice came across the com-link. His voice remained calm but his urgency was obvious.

“We’ve got trouble,” Manning said. “There was nothing across the scanner, but I got an unmarked sedan with a dashboard light that just pulled into the alley.”

“Roger,” Bolan whispered.

“Get out!” Manning’s voice suddenly gritted. “Get out, they just rushed the door and a request for backup call just went out over the scanner. My boys had a surveillance operation. Get out.”

At that moment Bolan heard the downstairs door break open and the shouts of men as they entered the stairway on the first floor.

“Get Jack into the air and over the rally point,” Bolan ordered.

“Roger,” Manning acknowledged.

Then everything began to fall apart.

The voices in the kitchen went silent then burst into frantic curses, and in the distance Bolan heard the wail of police sirens. He knew with sudden intuition that a storm had just arrived in Toronto.

CHAPTER THREE

Bolan heard chairs scrape across the floor from inside the mosque’s kitchen and backpedaled from the door as it was thrown open. Light spilled into the gloomy hallway like dawn rising, and Bolan dropped to one knee and swung up the MP-5.

The first of the kitchen cabal rushed into the hallway. Raneen Ogedi held his Skorpion machine pistol at hip height as he emerged from the cramped room, his head already turning toward the far end of the hall where the footsteps of numerous men could be clearly heard thundering up the fire stairs. He looked stunned to see the black-clad Bolan crouched in the hallway. Ogedi leveled his weapon. The chugging sound of the silenced MP-5 was eerie as Bolan pulled down on the terrorist. His spent shells were caught in the cloth-and-wire brass catcher attached to the weapon’s ejection port. A 3-round burst of 9 mm Parabellum slugs ripped into the Iraqi’s face with brutal effect.

Blood splashed like paint onto the wood of the door and stood out vividly against the pale linoleum of the kitchen floor behind the man. Ogedi turned in a sloppy half circle and bounced off the kitchen door before dropping onto the ancient carpet of the hallway.

The next figure in the frantic line stumbled into the door frame. Bolan cut loose again and put a tight burst into the chest of the pistol wielding Sourouri, who had raced into the hallway directly behind the Iraqi killer. The man’s eyes were locked on the fallen form of his jihadist brother, and they lifted in shock as Bolan’s rounds punched up under his sternum, mangling his lungs and heart.

Blood gushed in a waterfall over the lips of the man’s gaping mouth and he tripped up in Ogedi’s legs and went down face-first. Bolan saw Bakr frozen at the edge of the kitchen door, hands held out and empty, his eyes locked on the grim specter of the Executioner.

Down the hallway the fire door burst open and Bolan glimpsed three men in suits, pistols drawn, as they raced into the hall. The lead man had a leather wallet open in his left hand and Bolan caught the dim flash of an RCMP badge.

Bolan rushed forward, hurtling the tangled mass of the two fallen terrorists. He slammed his shoulder into Bakr and knocked him out of the way. The old man grunted under the impact and spun off Bolan, stumbling backward over a chair and falling heavily to the kitchen floor. Something in Bolan, some sense of mercy or propriety, kept him from killing the man.

The soldier used the momentum of his impact with the man to spin to one side, putting himself at an angle to the fumbling Aram Hadayet, who was attempting to bring his pistol to bear. Bolan gripped his MP-5 in both hands and chopped it down like an ax, using the long sound suppressor like a bayonet.

The smoking, cylindrical tube struck the youth in his narrow almost-feminine wrist with a crack, and he dropped his weapon in surprised shock. Bolan swept the submachine-gun back and then thrust it forward, burying it in the Syrian’s soft abdomen. Hadayet folded as he gagged, and Bolan cracked him across the back of the neck with the MP-5’s collapsible buttstock. The youth went down hard to the floor. A cell phone skidded out of his hand and slid across the floor to bounce off the stove before sliding back to Bolan’s feet.

The Executioner heard footsteps pounding in the hall and sirens wailing outside as more police cars raced into the alley below the kitchen window. In the hall men were shouting, identifying themselves as police officers. Bolan caught a flash of motion out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Hiba Bakr scrambling to escape the kitchen.

Bolan let the man go, hoping he would slow the plainclothes police officers outside as he made good his own escape. Two hardcore killers had been put down and two intelligence coups left for the authorities to question. Bolan’s code of ethics wouldn’t let him fire on the police, even in self-defense, and he had an aversion to killing holy men.

He heard Hadayet moan at his feet, and he twisted to fire a burst across the room, shattering the glass. Beyond the window he saw the spiral reflections of flashing red emergency lights. In the hallway officers ordered Bakr to “Get down! Get down now!”

Bolan used the distraction to bend and secure the loose cell phone dropped by Hadayet. He rose and sprang toward the window across the kitchen. An RCMP officer, rushed the door with his pistol up, a mini flashlight attached below the barrel of the handgun. As Bolan passed the kitchen table, he turned and flipped it up so that it flew back and landed in the doorway.

The officer ducked back around the corner of the kitchen door to avoid the flying furniture. Bolan dropped the MP-5 and let it dangle from its sling as he scrambled up onto the counter. The leather sleeve of his jacket protected his arm as he knocked splinters of glass away from the window frame.

He stuck a leg through the window and prepared to duck out onto the fire escape. He looked back toward the kitchen door as he slid out and saw the officer he had distracted swing back around the corner, his service pistol held in both hands.

Bolan threw himself to the side as the man fired his weapon. A 10 mm slug cracked into the wall just to the soldier’s right, creating a pockmark, and the roar of the pistol was deafening in the acoustic chamber of a tiny room.

There was a frenzy of activity beneath him. Two separate police cruisers had entered the alley behind the mosque from either direction, and more sirens heralded the arrival of backup. Men shouted up at the fire escape from below, excited by the pistol shot.

“I have sights on. I have sights on,” Manning said over the com-link. “You want me to put their heads down?”

Bolan kept rolling as he fell, turning over his shoulder. He reached out with his hands and pulled himself upright by grasping the cold iron bars of the fire escape ladder. He hauled himself up and gathered his feet under him. Set, he scrambled upward, running hard up the rungs.

“Negative, negative,” Bolan snarled. “I’m still good.”

Below him the Canadian cop thrust his body out of the window and shouted for Bolan to stop, raising his weapon. Bolan ignored him, his lungs burning as he scrambled upward. Sparks flew off the metal rung in his grasp, and the fire escape rang as a bullet ricocheted away. An almost indiscernible second later he heard the pistol bark.

“Your call, Striker. Copy,” Manning said.

At the fourth floor Bolan spun and raced up the last length of fire escape. Bullets peppered the walls around and below him as police officers on the ground began to fire. The sharp barks of the pistols echoed up between the narrow walls of the alley.

Diving over the edge of the roof, he hit the tar-papered platform and rolled across his back, coming up quickly. He crossed the roof and looked down onto the main thoroughfare. Three more police cars had pulled up in front of the mosque, their occupants running forward to the storefront.

Bolan turned away from the edge. He knew the police would be hard on his heels, and he felt a certain admiration for their tenacity and courage. He crossed the rooftop at a dead sprint, heading for the next building, a long, two-story, used-furniture store.

The soldier hit the waist-high wall circumventing the roof like a rampart. He lowered himself and slid his chest across the cinder-block divider, swinging his feet over until he dangled off the wall, holding on by only his grip. Bolan looked down to make sure his landing area was clear and then let go.

He fell straight down, struck the lower roof and rolled over hard onto his back. The maneuver, left over from his paratrooper training, absorbed much of the force of his fall but he still struck hard enough to nearly drive the air from his lungs.

Bolan gasped in the frigid air and forced himself to his feet. He rose, setting his sights on the tenement building rising up on the other side of the used-furniture store’s roof. Windows faced out from the apartments onto the roof, and lights were snapping on in response to the gunfire and police sirens.

“I’m heading for the tenement,” Bolan barked into the phone.

“Roger. Jack says he’s over the rally point. You want me to come get you?”

Bolan began to run toward the tenement building, starting to skirt a large skylight set in the middle of the rooftop. From behind him he heard the voice of the policeman who had dogged his every footstep since the hallway. A white pool of light from the officer’s mini-flashlight cut through the night. The officer shouted his warning.

Bolan refused the cop’s third warning and the officer began to fire.

“Negative. I’m going to try for my vehicle for now, stay in overwatch,” Bolan answered.

“Okay, but you got a street full of good guys.”

Bolan didn’t have time to answer.

Bullets struck the roof as the Executioner ran, and he knew he’d never make it. Already the bullets were falling closer, and if the RMCP officer settled down, he had a very good chance of striking the fleeing Bolan.

The soldier pushed back the edge of his jacket and swept up the MP-5. His heart was pounding as he leveled the submachine-gun. He heard the crack of the officer’s pistol behind him as Bolan squeezed his trigger. The H&K submachine-gun cycled through a burst, and the skylight just ahead of him shattered.

Bolan felt a tug at the hair on his head as he ran, followed by the pistol report and he knew how close he’d come. He hunched down and dug his legs into the sprint. The lip of the broken skylight rushed toward him and Bolan leaped into the air.

Bolan hurtled across the open space. The black hole of the broken skylight appeared under him as he jumped, and he brought his legs together. At the zenith of his leap he plunged through the broken window.

Glass shattered under his feet, and he could feel sharp glass spikes tear at his leather jacket as he smashed through the smaller opening he’d initiated with his gunfire.

The bottom of his jacket fluttered up behind him as he dropped into the darkness, and he felt a jolt of apprehension as he fell, completely unaware of where he would land or on what. Splinters of glass scattered and fell around him like shards of ice, and the buildup of icy slush on the window cascaded down in an avalanche.

Bolan tried to prepare himself for the impact, knew it could be considerable enough to snap his legs or even kill him if he landed wrong, but it was impossible because of the tomblike darkness of the store interior to know for sure.

The soldier grunted with the impact as he struck a countertop and it was unfeasible to roll. His legs simply folded under him and his buttocks hit the hard wood with enough force to snap his teeth closed.

He spilled out on his back, and if not for the sling around his shoulder he would have lost the MP-5. His head whipped down and bounced off the countertop so sharply he saw stars before his momentum swept him off the counter. He fell another five feet onto the ground, striking his knee painfully on the concrete floor under the thin, rough weave of the cheap carpet.

His outflung arm made sharp contact with something large and the object was knocked to the floor. The item landed with a crash beside him and an internal bell rang, telling Bolan he had just tipped over the store cash register. The empty door on the register shot open with a pop like a gunshot as he landed, and the flesh of his palms split as they made rough contact with the floor. He winced at the sudden sting.

Forcing himself to his feet, Bolan clung to the counter for support. Adrenaline filled him and he gritted his teeth as he forced himself up. Once he was standing he ripped off his balaclava and stuffed it inside his coat. Through the store’s big front windows he saw police lights flashing. They cycled through the dark store, illuminating the interior briefly.

Bolan hobbled into a pile of furniture and out from underneath the broken skylight. If he knew the character of the cop on his tail, the man would be there soon. He saw other cops moving out in the street, their attention focused on the building housing the mosque.

The Executioner forced himself forward, heading directly toward the front of the building, dodging around furniture displays set up to look like living rooms or bedrooms or dinning areas. He spoke into his throat mike with blood-smeared lips.

“Striker, here,” he said. “My ride is a no-go. You ready for extraction?”

“Affirmative,” Manning answered.

“Copy,” Bolan said. “As soon as it’s clear, I’ll blow the distraction.”

“I’m coming now.”

Bolan moved forward until he was clear of the furniture displays and could see out onto the street unimpeded. Five police cars were visible, most of their occupants out of their vehicles and storming toward the grocery underneath the mosque.

The soldier looked at his own Toyota 4-Runner. No one appeared to be standing near the vehicle. He looked down the street and saw a black Ford Expedition abruptly round a corner three blocks up, lights blazing.

Bolan made his decision.

From the skylight behind him a beam of bright illumination shot out from the flashlight attached beneath the barrel of the RCMP officer’s 10 mm pistol. It cut through the shadows inside the furniture store and swept around, hunting for Bolan.

The soldier dived out of the way as the light tracked toward him and the officer fired. A 10 mm round burrowed into the floor with relentless force. Bolan desperately needed something to rattle the Canadian officer’s aim. He fell into a shoulder-roll, away from the illumination of the big front windows.

He came up out of his somersault and shoved a store mannequin toward the searching light. The figure toppled and the cop triggered his gun twice. The man’s second round struck the mannequin in the head, and the soft lead slug hammered a crater into the plastic statue.

Bolan shoved a hand into the pocket of his leather jacket, grasped his key ring and pulled it clear. He looked down and located the electronic fob on the end. His thumb pressed the vehicle’s remote start option.

Out in the street the Toyota exploded in a sudden ball of flames with a deafening boom. The chassis leaped straight up, engulfed by fire and pouring black smoke. It came down hard and sent metal car parts scattering in all directions.

The ruined 4-Runner came to a rest in the middle of the street and burned like a bonfire. Up the street Gary Manning’s Ford Expedition locked its brakes with an angry squeal. Bolan swept up his MP-5 and fired at the plate-glass window. Spent shells clanged together as they rattled into his brass catcher.

The window shattered and heavy shards of glass cascaded like icicles to burst against the concrete outside the window. Bolan slung the weapon as he raced forward.

He heard pistol shots from behind him, but had no idea if they came close or not as he stepped off his lead foot and sprang into the air.

He hurtled the bottom of the window like a track star and landed outside. He heard shouts coming from his left and risked a look as he landed in a crouch. He saw a squad of Toronto uniformed policemen, most of them on the ground and disorientated by the car bomb he had just detonated.

One patrolman was sufficiently together to lift an arm and point, shouting out a warning as Bolan pivoted and began to sprint up the slushy sidewalk toward the Ford Expedition gunning straight for him. His breath billowed out in front of him in silver plumes as he charged forward. His breathing was loud in his ears, and he could feel his heart hammering in his chest.

He saw Manning clearly through the windshield of the Expedition. The Phoenix Force commando locked up the emergency brake, and the tires screeched in protest as he swung the back end of the SUV in a smooth bootlegger maneuver. Bolan dived toward the passenger door.

Pistol shots rang out from behind him.

He saw Manning lean across the front seat and open the passenger door. A bullet struck the rear windshield and pebbled the safety glass. Another round sparked off the bumper. Bolan reached the front of the SUV and threw himself inside.

Manning didn’t wait for his passenger to close the open door but instead stood on the gas. Tires screamed, turning fast, digging for traction. Then they caught and the Expedition lurched forward like a bullet train leaving the station, throwing Bolan back into the seat.

“Grimaldi ready?” the soldier panted.

“Always,” Manning stated as he sent the SUV into a power slide that took the fugitive vehicle off the street and out of sight of the policemen firing on them. “He’s put the Little Bird down on the top floor of a parking garage six blocks over. We’ll be in the air in two minutes.” He looked down at a digital clock display. “One minute,” he corrected.

Bolan nodded. He reached inside his jacket pocket and checked for Hadayet’s cell phone. If they moved fast, he thought, they just might have a crack at Scimitar.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Stony Man team switched out the Little Bird for a clean JetRanger at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport and proceeded south. In a reasonable amount of time the helicopter was following Skyline Drive along the backbone of the rugged Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. The base for the Special Operations Group was only fifty-odd miles southwest of Washington, D.C., and dawn was breaking as the aircraft approached the installation.

A Chevy Blazer was waiting beside the landing strip where Jack Grimaldi put down the JetRanger.

“You guys go on ahead,” he told Bolan and Manning.

“I’m going to do some postflight checks.”

“Thanks, Jack,” Bolan said.

He and Manning ducked under the slowing props and crossed over to where Buck Green, chief of security, waited behind the wheel of the SUV. He smiled as the Stony Man commandos approached.

“How was Canada?”

“Chilly,” Bolan replied.

“He warmed it up a bit,” Manning noted, his voice dry.

“So they tell me,” Greene laughed. “Get in. Gary, you’ve got some time off coming. Later tonight David wants your help running an op-for exercise against the blacksuits,” Greene said, using the slang term for Stony Man’s security detail.

Manning grunted. “What have you cooked up?”

Greene grinned. “It’ll be good. I want to focus on the orchard approach to the compound.”

Manning shrugged his acceptance and climbed into the back of the Blazer. If he’d wanted a life of leisure, he could have chosen a thousand other occupations. He was dedicated to the Stony Man cause without question. Even the covert action inside his homeland hadn’t bothered him. He’d operated surreptitiously under the nose of his host country, the U.S., on many occasions. Slaying dragons was a pannational vocation.

“What about me?” Bolan asked.

He climbed into the front seat and slammed the door shut. He gave a lazy salute to Grimaldi as Greene pulled the Chevy onto the narrow road leading from the airfields toward the central complex and the Stony Man farmhouse.

The security chief snorted. “Oh, no rest for the wicked, I’m afraid.”

“Hal?” Bolan asked, knowing the answer.

“Yep, Hal’s here. He’s very interested to hear what you got in Toronto.”

“I got time for breakfast? Maybe some coffee? Most of what we’ll decide will depended on what Aaron can get out of this cell phone I recovered.”

Greene nodded and reached down to pick up the Blazer’s radio. “I’ll call ahead to Barbara,” he said. “She’ll make sure the kitchen gets you what you want.”

Greene meant Barbara Price, the honey-blond mission controller and sometime Bolan paramour. She ran Stony Man with cool competence and considerable ability. If she gave the word, the Farm’s kitchen would prepare a feast. She was also the only one likely to keep Hal Brognola quiet about waiting.

After the fall he’d taken from the skylight in Toronto, Bolan wanted nothing more than a long, hot shower and to eat a good meal before his debriefing. However, the link he had discovered to Scimitar was tenuous. Most high-ranking insurgents in the Iraq theater never stayed in one location for more than twelve hours.

If Stony Man was going to have a shot at Scimitar, the clock was already ticking.

B OLAN SAT in the War Room.

The multimedia compatible meeting room was as secure as anything one could find at the NSA or CIA headquarters and as comfortable as a New York City law firm’s boardroom. It took up approximately one-half of the basement space of the main house, and Bolan knew the room intimately after all his years at the Farm.

Hal Brognola sat at the head of the conference table, chewing on an unlit cigar. Price and Bolan occupied two other chairs, while Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman sat in a wheelchair off to one side. Nearby was a high-tech console that controlled the War Room’s media displays and lights.

Bolan had brought his breakfast with him. He pushed his empty plate away and pulled a large mug of coffee closer.

While eating he’d gone over the details of the Toronto takedown. Brognola acknowledged that an inquiry had been made to the Department of Homeland Security regarding an operation against Hiba Bakr. Official channels had been able to respond honestly that they had neither authorized such an illegal incursion nor were they aware of such an ongoing operation.

Since Bolan had chosen to leave Bakr to Canadian intelligence, the CIA had requested that an agent join CSIS for the interrogations. Brognola had learned that the diplomat father of the Syrian youth had already filed a protest with the government in Ottawa and the UN regarding the arrest of his son. The company of known international terrorists notwithstanding, it was likely his request for release would be granted.

“This means Scimitar could already be alerted. In fact we have to assume so,” Brognola said. “Carmen is running those cell numbers into Iraq right now, cross-referencing NSA databases. We’re hoping for a triangulation. When we’re done here I intend to fly back into D.C. and follow up on some things Barb has put into motion.” He looked over at Barbara Price whose face was carefully neutral, a sure sign of her displeasure. “Certain operational contingencies we’ve already had in place, in the event that Stony Man was ever called upon to act in Iraq.”

Bolan nodded and sipped his coffee. He’d taken 800 mg of ibuprofen on arriving at the farmhouse and was beginning to feel less banged up.

“What kind of contingencies?” he asked.

“Barb, this was your brainchild,” the big Fed said.

Price nodded and set her mug of coffee on the conference table.

“If the need should arise, we’ve worked out several scenarios to get Mack into Iraq under operational cover. Our most promising cover is dual. We can coordinate your activities through the DNI and CIA. CENTCOM will think you’re Pentagon spooks. Your ‘cover’ for that cover will be employment as private military contractors working for a prestigious international company breaking into the lucrative southwest Asian market.”

“What company would that be?” Bolan asked.

“A Montreal-based firm called North American International, headed by one certain Gary U. Manning,” Kurtzman stated.

“I take it the background check for such contracts was expedited?” Bolan asked.

“I hand-carried the forms through channels myself,” Brognola admitted.

“This means,” Price continued, “that we’ll be able to funnel out special access program funds into legitimate government contracts paid to North American International.”

“Clever,” Bolan stated.

“It is a court of last resort,” Price said. “As far as I was concerned, this was a contingency plan that was never meant to be used. The U.S. government has plenty of assets in place already to deal with conventional problems.”

“But Scimitar isn’t conventional anymore, is he?” Bolan observed.

“No, he’s not,” Brognola said.

The big Fed leaned forward. He nodded once to Kurtzman. The head of Stony Man’s cybernetics team pressed a series of buttons on the table’s console. The lights dimmed and a slab of paneling in the wall behind Brognola slid back to reveal a six-foot HD wall screen. Immediately an olive-skinned, bearded face with blunt features and a patrician nose appeared on the screen. Bolan recognized the man as the individual known as Scimitar.

Brognola took his chewed up cigar out of his mouth and held it between his blunt fingers.

“He realized more quickly than most of his compatriots that no matter what happened in Iraq, post-Saddam, a return to Baathist rule in any form was extremely unlikely. He rapidly morphed his activity away from American resistance into establishing a power base for himself, using the insurgency as a cover with his jihadist allies. His method was, as most effective plans are, simple. Barb?”

Stony Man’s mission controller smoothly took over the briefing. She rose and crossed the room, placing a folder on the conference table in front of Bolan before continuing.

“Initially he set up a small regional base manned by Fedayeen subordinates in the Baghdad slum of Amariyah, along Route Irish,” Price began, using the U.S. military designation of the road running between the Baghdad International Airport and the Green Zone, often referred to in the media as the “Highway of Death.”

Price took a drink of her coffee and continued speaking. Bolan began to leaf through the file as he listened. His fatigue and physical discomfort began to bleed away as his interest in the mission grew with his realization of how important it was.

“Scimitar then withdrew to the west, into An Bar province in proximity to the Syrian border,” Price said.

“He used his Fedayeen troops to control the area, then exploited his contacts with Syrian intelligence as well as secret caches of equipment, weapons and cash to outfit foreign fighters.

“All pretty run-of-the-mill. He maintained credibility as anti-American with both former Saddam supporters and the international jihadists movement. However, Scimitar is no ideologue. He used his connections with jihadists in southwest Asia to begin moving heroin into Iraq. From there he used Albanian mafia connections given him by the Syrian IMJ and the freelancer al-Kassar, to move the heroin out of Iraq, through Istanbul and on to points west in both Europe and America. Ostensibly the funds were used to fund insurgent activity. Mostly it went to purchasing Sunni members of Iraq’s government to give him immunity from scrutiny. He now operates out of a section of the city of Ramadi completely under Iraq national control. He used his connections in the Iraqi government to give up rivals in the area when the National Army moved in. The area, under his orders, remained ‘pacified’ and the National Army was mostly supplanted by local Iraqi police units.”

“Its ranks filled with members of his personal militia,” Kurtzman added.

Price nodded in agreement. “Scimitar owns that city, or that neighborhood anyway. The imams answer to him there, foreign agents take his direction and the police forces are essentially his private militia. It is a quiet sector, a success story for the Iraqi national army in an otherwise blatant embarrassment. He moves funds for operations in Baghdad out of the city and heroin in through it.”

Bolan was silent. If ever a target or network had needed taking out, Scimitar’s rated right up there. The problem was not clear-cut, however. The soldier had adhered to an iron-fast rule during his War Everlasting. Cops were off limits.

“I’ll take down the network,” he said slowly, “but crooked or not, I don’t want to draw down on police officers.”

“Mack, this isn’t the bad old days. This situation isn’t even one of corruption per se. Scimitar’s militia hasn’t infiltrated or corrupted the Iraqi police in western Ramadi. His militia simply put on those blue uniforms,” Brognola said. “In the initial months there were honest Iraqis in that police unit. They were found, one by one, hung by their heels from lampposts with their heads cut off. Look for yourself.” Brognola indicated the file in front of Bolan. “Those uniforms don’t represent good street cops gone bad. It’s more like the Gestapo or some kind of disguise. This isn’t New York City, or even Chechnya. It’s like calling those butchers, the Fedayeen, police officers when they operated under Saddam.”

Bolan sat silently. He considered Brognola’s words as he mulled over this worst-case scenario. When he spoke he chose his words with careful deliberation.

“Scimitar has a network. I’m on board with taking that network down. I’m on board with bringing Scimitar down. But I reserve the right to call this off at any time. If I don’t like what I see going on when we get into Iraq, I walk. That’s the deal, Hal.”

“Wouldn’t want it any other way, Striker,” Brognola answered.

CHAPTER FIVE

Carmen Delahunt entered the room at that moment, bearing a slim file containing a computer printout. She also carried the cell phone he’d taken from Aram Hadayet.

Delahunt was an attractive middle-aged redhead who had been recruited from the FBI to become a vital member of Aaron Kurtzman’s cybernetics team.

She smiled and nodded her greeting to everyone in the room, then handed her findings to Barbara Price, who nodded her thanks.

“What did you find, Carmen?” Price asked.

“The Ramadi connection is now dead. I couldn’t discover whether that was because the people at that end knew about the raid or because the numbers are changed daily. However, overall the phone was a treasure trove. We were able to triangulate several geographic locations and assign specific personnel to those coordinates. I did a quick run up on them from our files. We’ve got several known players, and it gave us a pretty good idea about Scimitar’s network, if not his specific location.”

“If he has the Iraqi government bought off,” Bolan asked, “is he still underground?”

“Technically he’s still wanted by U.S. interests. He keeps a low profile, but it’s mainly the fact that the Iraqis run interference for him that keeps him operating outside of the notice of the U.S. CENTCOM there,” Price answered. “Either way, his network is in place. Simply cutting off the head of the dragon would do us only so much good.”

Bolan nodded his agreement with Price’s assessment, then turned his attention back to Delahunt.

“Three numbers proved to be of the most interest,” she said. “The first was confirmed to be that of an arms dealer named Mirjana operating out of Croatia. I have a file worked up on him. He’s known to Interpol but is well connected to the government there. He moves in the same circles as our friend Monzer al-Kassar, but we haven’t connected them specifically, yet.

“The second number is to a former commander in Saddam’s Special Republican Guard. He’s living with relatives in Amman, Jordan. He left Iraq immediately after Baghdad fell and has given no indication of having been involved in anti-American activities. The Defense Intelligence Agency had a workup on him they shared with Homeland Security, and he was given a pass.

“Perhaps the potentially most significant one is to the number of a Syrian National Airlines branch office in the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan. It is, of course, well-known that certain elements of Syrian intelligence services operate frequently from these branch offices. I’ve pulled everything we have on the region and that airport for the report.” Delahunt paused, she seemed almost apologetic.

“It’s pretty sparse,” she admitted. “It’s obvious the Syrian diplomat to Ottawa was using his son as a plausible deniability cutout. However, what is unrelated Syrian interest and what is specific to Scimitar remains uncertain at this point. If the youth was using the Toronto mosque to expand Scimitar’s network then such a disparate web as the numbers seem to indicate is a very bad sign. The network is most definitely global and apparently reaches beyond either the jihadist movement or Syrian intelligence.”

“Thank you, Carmen,” Price said, and Delahunt exited the War Room.

“There you have it,” Brognola said. “Not much to go on. Despite that, they’re the best leads we’ve ever come across concerning Scimitar-specific information. Because of his links to the Iraqi government and what the press would do if they found out, the Man wants this kept Stony Man quiet.”

“I guess the sooner I start, the sooner Scimitar gets taken down,” Bolan said.

“This couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time, Mack,” Price said.

“Able Team is tied up in South America and Phoenix Force has been tapped to provide security on a high-profile VIP working on nuclear proliferation in—” Kurtzman added.

“It’s important,” Brognola interjected.

“That op was set up a while ago through—” The computer wizard started.

“I know.” Brognola cut him off again. “If this trail takes Striker into Iraq, I don’t want him operating in that cesspool alone.”

“I’m somewhat used to working alone,” Bolan said, his voice as dry as an old grave.

“I know, Striker. But this could get damn ugly, and I know you’re used to that, as well,” Brognola said.

He turned to Price. “How many of Phoenix can you peel off that detail?”

Price pursed her lips, obviously conflicted. She was a mission-first person, and she ran Stony Man that way. Still, both operations were obviously of importance.

“I can’t drop the ball on that security detail, Hal,” she said. “I can give him two and that’s stretching it. Not Manning, though,” she added, thoughtful. “He’s my ballistics and explosives number one. He can handle the matter with North American International over secure communications if he needs to.”

Brognola turned back to Bolan. “I can give you two from Phoenix Force. Take them, Striker.”

Bolan nodded. He was pensive for a moment, weighing out the various specialties of each man. McCarter was out, obviously, as he was the team leader. The soldier trusted each man in Phoenix Force with his life; it wasn’t a question of trust. All of them were equally capable in their own ways. It was a question of pure pragmatism that guided his decision now.

“Give me Calvin and Rafe,” he said, referring to Calvin James and Rafael Encizo. “I’d like a dedicated Stony Man pilot if the need comes down to that,” Bolan said. “That could expedite things a lot. Jack, of course, if you can spare him.”

Brognola shifted his eyes to Price. Such matters were her domain.

“I’m sorry, Mack,” she said. “I know how much you trust Jack, but I need him down with Able Team. I can give you Charlie Mott.”

“He’s a good man,” Bolan agreed.

“All right,” Brognola stood. “Now that that’s settled we’ll get Rafe and Cal in here and get them up to speed. I have a meeting at Pennsylvania Avenue I’m late for.” He came around the table and shook Bolan’s hand.

“That was good work in Toronto, Striker. You keep yourself safe on this one.”

Bolan smiled back. If he had a dollar for every time he’d heard Brognola tell him to stay safe…well he’d be ahead by a lot.

“Thanks, Hal,” he said. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

S EVERAL HOURS LATER Bolan sat in the Stony Man Computer Room.

Price manned a telephone, deeply immersed in a conference call. Across the room Aaron Kurtzman worked at his station. He typed on a keyboard with a blunt, staccato rhythm. Maps, weather reports, intelligence bulletins and classified military reports scrolled across his multiple screens.

Bolan shuffled through his travel papers. He had identification as a North American International employee and another set as an Associated Press freelance reporter. His kit held passports, open tickets and visa receipts to bonded warehouses around the region. At his feet there was a black leather satchel that reminded him of a bowling ball bag which was tagged with a Diplomatic Pouch ID.

The suitcase was filled with stacks of money in several currencies. There was no functioning bank system in Iraq, no money wire transfers. Most people, from the government to the U.S. military to street vendors and terror agents, dealt in cold, hard cash.

In the War Room Rafael Encizo and Calvin James were being given their briefings. Bolan looked up as the door opened and Carmen Delahunt rushed in.

She held up a fax sheet and waved it at Price, who nodded and hurriedly cut her connection on the telephone. Bolan slid his paperwork together and put it in the black satchel with the cash before zipping the suitcase closed.

“We just got a break,” Delahunt said.

Price walked over to where Bolan was sitting and sat on a corner of the desk. Bolan leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desktop. Delahunt slapped the fax printout in front of them.

“I had a hunch,” she said. “So I did a keyword search of the integrated system. I came across an oblique reference to ‘Scimitar’ in an Interpol Asian Liaison report. It was pretty vague, but it was in reference to the Shimmering Raindrop Triad, known to operate out of Hong Kong. The interesting part is that the Agency,” she said, referencing one of the slang terms for the CIA, “has them pegged as a sometime mercenary cutout for China’s Central Control of Information.”

Bolan grunted in recognition at the name. The CCI was a branch of Communist China’s foreign intelligence services. It was mostly known for economic and industrial espionage. It operated out of Silicon Valley and Hong Kong the way the KGB had operated out of Berlin during the cold war.

“Good work, Carmen,” Price said. “What else?”

“Apparently the agency had a middle management mole in the triad. It was a report about that asset, Jigsaw Liu, that mentioned Scimitar. Jigsaw Liu was given control of triad gambling operations in Hong Kong. He was briefly the focus of an Immigration and Customs investigation into human smuggling with the FBI. The Agency stepped in and asked the DNI to squash it, despite the various crimes, because he represents a backdoor into the CCI.

“I have a contact number for Jigsaw Liu’s handler if you want to make contact before you go overseas,” Delahunt finished.

“Might give us a little more to go on before we commit,” Price said, thoughtful.

Bolan nodded. “Every little bit helps,” he agreed. “Check with the Agency man, set up a meet.” He turned to Price. “Go ahead and send Rafe and Cal to Zagreb,” he said. “Have them set up and start initial recon. I’ll handle the meet alone. It’ll expedite the whole operation.”

Price pursed her lips. “Rafe and Cal are probably our best choice for moving through Baghdad unnoticed, but they won’t exactly blend into the Croatian crowds.”

“I’m going to approach Mirjana as a representative of North American International. Don’t have them pretending to be local. We’ll set them up as company reps since they’ll obviously be pegged as foreigners.”

“Good point. I’ll send Rafe and Cal over on a commercial flight. You three can fly into Jordan from Zagreb later and then take a commercial flight into Baghdad International.”

“I’ll call the Agency handler and set up a meet with Jigsaw Liu,” Delahunt stated.

“Let’s make it happen,” Bolan said.

Things were starting to click. He just couldn’t tell if the pieces were falling into place or if this was the beginning of an avalanche.

CHAPTER SIX

Special Administrative Region, Hong Kong

Bolan stood in the alleyway behind the Mandarin restaurant.

Several streets over the sound of a busy Hong Kong night met his ears. Along the waterfront it was quiet. There were no streetlamps, the only illumination coming from bare bulbs set over the back doors of various businesses.

It was quiet enough that he could just make out the gentle lapping of harbor water against the wooden pilings of the piers. The alley he was in stank of urine, rotting vegetables and fish guts. Under a naked bulb casting a weak light, Bolan faced an old wooden door. The paint was peeling and the wood had grown soft with age and the erosion by salty air. A Chinese ideogram had been spray painted in the center of the door.

Bolan recognized the symbol from Carmen Delahunt’s report as standing for the Shimmering Raindrop Triad. Down the alley three Chinese men in their early twenties crouched and smoked, talking rapidly. One of them watched Bolan, dragging on his cigarette. The Executioner thought the youths likely to be security forces. Soldiers in the triads were differentiated by the slang numeric code 426.

Hong Kong had changed a lot since 1997 when the British had returned it to the control of the People’s Republic of China. Hong Kong formed one of only two Special Administrative Regions, the other being Macau. Despite the PRC’s take over, Hong Kong had maintained a high degree of autonomy and was China’s richest city, operating in accordance with terms laid out in the Sino-British Joint Declaration, existing under not Beijing rule, but the Basic Law of Hong Kong.

Under this “One Country, Two Systems” policy Hong Kong kept its own legal system, customs policy and currency until 2047. As a result, the city had one of the most liberal economies in the world and had maintained its status as an epicenter for finance and trade. It had long been a seat for the People’s Republic of China’s espionage efforts. In many ways it had come to replace old Berlin as the spy center of the world, though Islamabad and Amman gave the Asian metropolis a run for its money.

In spite of all this, or more accurately, because of all this, Chinese crime syndicates flourished in the environment. Bolan was about to enter living proof of that as he prepared to attend the meet set up by a junior Hong Kong case officer in the CIA.

Bolan turned the knob on the door in the alley and let it swing open. A concrete staircase, littered with multicolored stubs of paper and crushed cigarette butts, ran down to a small square landing. From this landing a second set of stairs led even deeper into the earth under the Mandarin restaurant.

The soldier walked through the door and descended the stairs. The door swung shut behind him and the gloom on the steps thickened. Another naked bulb hung from a cord above the landing below him, and Bolan carefully moved toward it.

The smell of the raw earth around him was dank. He could faintly hear the squeal of rats moving behind the packed dirt walls and rotted timbers. The earth had absorbed decades’ worth of body odor, spilled alcohol and cigarette smoke. He was entering the pit, an underground warren of small rooms and low tunnels devoted to the greatest vice of the Chinese: gambling.

The only legal gambling permitted in the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong was the horse races sanctioned at the Happy Valley tracks since 1846 or at the relatively newer Shatin facility. This fell far short of satiating the traditional penchant for wagers and games of chance, and in the spirit of ruthless entrepreneurialism the Hong Kong triads had stepped in to meet the need.

Bolan turned the corner in the narrow staircase at the landing. Below him the second staircase halted at a sturdy metal door. A Chinese male sat on a tall, three-legged stool, guarding the door.

As he moved closer in the uncertain light, Bolan saw the butt of a Beretta 92-F sticking out of the guard’s waistband. On the back of the man’s right hand was a tattoo of the same ideogram painted on the door in the alley above them. More ideogram tattoos crawled up the man’s fat neck in precise, if sprawling, patterns. From through the cast-iron door Bolan could hear muted but obviously raucous activity.

The man scrutinized Bolan with narrowed eyes. He barked something in what Bolan took to be Cantonese. The soldier shrugged helplessly, then held up a thick wad of Hong Kong dollars. He said Jigsaw Liu’s name.

The doorman took the bank notes and thumbed through them suspiciously. He looked back up at Bolan and repeated Jigsaw Liu’s name.

“Jigsaw Liu,” Bolan agreed.

The wad of money disappeared into a pocket and the guard rapped sharply against the metal door. It swung open immediately and a skinny, sallow-skinned man with a hand-rolled cigarette clenched between crooked, yellow teeth eyed Bolan up and down. From behind him the noise of the room spilled out.

He said something to the doorman, who grunted and repeated Jigsaw Liu’s name. The skinny 426 nodded once and stepped out of Bolan’s way. The soldier ducked his head and stepped into the chamber beyond.

His senses were fully assaulted as he stepped through the door. The ceiling was low on the long room. The haze of cigarette smoke was thick in the air and looked like a gray-blue fog above the heads of the shouting gamblers. The cacophony of chattering, arguing, belligerent voices was punctuated by the sharp clacking of mahjong tiles. He saw numerous tables filled with frantic men, many clutching their own wads of HK dollars.

Bolan’s gaze wandered across the room, noting additional exits and the hard-eyed men standing sentry on the edge of the gambling pits. Other than the pistol tucked into the waistband of the outside doorman, Bolan saw no other weapons on flagrant display, though he was positive they were present. He’d been somewhat surprised not to have been searched at the door, but he assumed most customers here were local and, from the look of it, older.

The sallow-skinned Chinese man repeated Jigsaw Liu’s name and indicated a gloomy tunnel leading off the main, cavernous parlor. Bolan began to make his way across the crowded room, sticking close to the back wall as he did so. More than one pair of suspicious eyes followed him.

He crossed the chamber and ducked into the narrow tunnel running off at a sharp angle from the parlor. He felt at once exposed and claustrophobic in the hallway. The pit was a perfect place for a trap, and he had a hunch that its proximity to the harbor made the disposal of bodies an uncomplicated matter.

Bolan stepped over the sprawled and unconscious body of an opium smoker. The ancient Oriental habit had become modernized and had morphed into the use of more current narcotics in Hong Kong, as it had in the rest of the world, but there were still more “traditionalists” of opium in Hong Kong slums than elsewhere on the globe. The man’s eyes stared dully, pupils glassy and out of sync with the gloomy light in the tunnel. The man’s filthy, short-sleeved, button-down shirt was stained with vomit. His breathing was so shallow that Bolan at first thought him a recent corpse.

Bolan turned a corner in the hallway and exposed metal pipes suddenly erupted from the packed earth, ran for a length of several yards then just as abruptly turned back into the wall. Up ahead he saw two heavyset Chinese men standing in front of a door set back in the hallway wall. Both 426 grunts openly sported Beretta 92-F pistols. Despite the damp, they wore stylish black T-shirts and tan slacks with shiny dress shoes. Their arms crawled with tattoos.

Though the hallway ran down a ways past them and split off into an intersection, Bolan felt sure he had found Jigsaw Liu’s office. He walked up to the men, who watched him from beneath hooded lids, their hair slicked back in pompadours.

“Cooper,” he said, giving his cover name. “Jigsaw Liu.”

They seemed to recognize the name, and Bolan sent a silent thanks to the Agency case officer who had cleared the way. One of the guards knocked softly on the door. At a muttered response from within the man opened the door and stuck his head inside.

Bolan heard a rush of whispered Cantonese, the name “Cooper” and then a gruff response from deeper within the room. The bodyguard pulled his head out from behind the door and indicated with a curt gesture that Bolan should enter.

The soldier stepped forward and crossed the threshold. The interior of the office couldn’t have been more at odds with the general atmosphere of the pit. Bolan stepped onto thick carpet accented by tasteful lighting. A massive desk of Oriental teak dominated the room. The narrow, vertical paintings popular in Asian cultures hung from walls made of the same teak as the desk.

The desk itself could have belonged to any successful businessman. It was neatly organized and two separate laptops flanked the main PC screen, all done in a lacquered ebony sheen. One of the screens was turned in such a way that Bolan could see it. He recognized software designed to track up-to-the-second stock market variations.

The man behind the desk regarded Bolan with the eyes of a reptile. He did not rise as the big American entered. His dark, Western suit was immaculate and in sharp contrast to the jigsaw patterns of scars that traversed his almost moon-shaped face. Bolan knew from Jigsaw Liu’s file that the Hong Kong mobster had gotten the scars when he’d been propelled through the windshield of his car during an assassination attempt. In the parlance of his kind, Jigsaw Liu was the Red Pole of the Shimmering Raindrop Triad.

Behind him a long, low cabinet ran the length of his office wall. Books in stylish and expensive leather bindings took up one side. The other held two closed-circuit television monitors. The screens were divided into four squares, each revealing a different image as captured by Liu’s security system.

Bolan noted that one screen showed the alley where he had first entered the pit. The three youths he had witnessed loitering there were now gone. Another screen showed the mahjong parlor Bolan had cut through. On a third, potbellied and middle-aged Chinese men lounged as young girls in skimpy costumes and heavy makeup pampered them. On the other screen one of the picture sets showed the two men standing guard outside of Liu’s office door.

Set on the wall above the cabinet was a plasma-screen television. The HDTV was on with the volume turned down. Bolan was surprised to see that it was turned not to a Hong Kong or even Chinese station but to Al Jazerra. To the left of the plasma screen a single door made of dark wood was set into the wall. Bolan could tell at a glance that the door was very heavy and solid in construction.

“You come with impressive introductions,” Liu said.

When the Red Pole spoke there was a slur to his voice that Bolan immediately attributed to the facial scars and not to alcohol or drugs. The man’s black eyes glittered like a snake’s.

“As do you.” Bolan inclined his head.

The soldier had no use for the excessive manners common in the Orient, or the preoccupation with “face” that was almost stereotypical but still entirely prevalent. However he had a larger agenda than a Hong Kong kingpin. He had no intention of stepping on the CIA’s toes unless it became very necessary.

Because of that he remained standing until Jigsaw Liu indicated he should sit. When the Hong Kong gangster gestured, Bolan took a seat in a comfortable, wingback chair set on Liu’s right side. Bolan inquired after Liu’s health. The Hong Kong killer snorted his laughter.

“I appreciate the effort,” he continued in heavily accented English. “But I assure you it is unnecessary. I know how important it is for you gwailo to get down to business. So—” Liu templed his fingers in front of his double chin “—let us get down to business.”

“Good enough,” Bolan said.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope and a photograph. He leaned forward in his chair and casually tossed both onto the top of Liu’s desk. The gangster reached out with one hand and pulled the items toward him, his eyes never leaving his visitor.

Bolan leaned back in his chair and absentmindedly scratched at his new beard. It was filling in nicely, and more quickly that he’d hoped.

Liu opened the envelope and ran a thumb across the tightly packed bank notes. He opened a drawer in his desk and slid the money into it.

Only after he had securely closed the drawer did Liu look at the picture. His eyebrows furrowed slightly as he inspected the image on the photograph Bolan had given him. He looked up and his eyes were quizzical.

He grunted. “I recognize al-Kassar, but who’s this with him?”

“Scimitar.”

“Scimitar?” Liu snorted.

“Isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“You know Scimitar, don’t you? My people think you do.”

Liu regarded Bolan, his face expressionless, but a certain low, animal cunning made his black eyes glisten. He reached out and pushed the photograph back across his desk in Bolan’s direction.

“My establishment is a good place to hear rumors, you understand?” Liu said carefully. “I have heard that certain men of…influence, sometimes move certain contraband products out of Laos and into the Middle East. As I do not engage in such illicit activities, I do not have firsthand knowledge of these things myself, you understand?”

Bolan nodded. If Liu was uninterested in admitting his part in moving heroin out of the Golden Triangle and into Europe, then Bolan wasn’t going to challenge him. At the moment, anyway. Everything he learned would go into Stony Man files, and Bolan new that sooner or later such a heavy hitter as Liu would screw up and the Executioner would have him.

“Go on,” Bolan said.

“I can tell you that none of the people involved in that enterprise have ever dealt with the men in that picture.”

“But they have dealt with Scimitar?”

Liu held his hands up as if to say “who can tell” and smiled. “So they say. I am told, and I’m quoting now,” he continued. “I am told ‘Scimitar is a lie.’”

Bolan pondered Liu’s words and their implications. He felt deeply dissatisfied. He looked away from Liu’s sneering mask of a face and tried to decide on a fresh avenue. His gaze drifted to the CCTV monitors and a flurry of motion caught his attention.

The guards outside Liu’s office door staggered backward, their bodies jerking in crazy, disjointed dances. Blood spurted from their blossoming wounds. One 426 sentry stumbled back against the door and simultaneously Bolan heard the thump from behind him.

Liu cursed at the interruption and turned to look at his CCTV displays. He nearly screamed at what he saw.

Three men with balaclava masks burst into the camera view. One wielded a cut-down Remington 870 pump-action shotgun. He was flanked by a man with a mini-Uzi machine pistol, the sound suppressor nearly as long as the weapon itself. This man was still firing, and he raked the downed bodies of Liu’s 426s with ruthless abandon.

Behind the two men a third stepped into view. He wielded twin Beretta 92-F pistols, and he fired one several times back down the hall toward the mahjong parlor and off camera.

Bolan was going for the Beretta 93-R under his shoulder when he saw the shotgun-wielding hit man level his weapon at the door to Liu’s office and begin pumping blasts into the wooden structure. Behind Bolan 12-gauge slugs slammed through the lock mechanism and he heard the booms of the Remington 870.

Hell had found the Executioner one more time.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Time seemed to unfold in slow motion. Bolan came up out of his wingback chair as the door to Liu’s office banged open, Beretta in his hand. Behind the desk Liu had grabbed a custom-engraved .45ACP pistol.

Bolan swept up the Beretta in a two-fisted grip. The shotgun-perforated door had swung wide and bounced off the inner wall of the office. The hit man wielding the mini-Uzi rushed into the room, his silenced subgun cycling fast, flame spitting from the muzzle.

Bullets sprayed the room. Liu’s computer exploded with a shower of sparks and his laptops were torn apart and swept to the floor. The twin CCTV screens caught a single 9 mm slug apiece and went dark as the glass cracked open like eggshells.

The fusillade continued unabated until the room was destroyed.

Jigsaw Liu went out like a warrior.

No matter how despicable his crimes, the triad Red Pole showed courage as he died. Bullets struck him in rapid-fire torrents. Blossoms of scarlet bloomed on his expensive dark suit, spilling blood in surging fountains across his wide desk. Liu shook under the impact, and the sound of lead slugs burning through his torso was clearly audible to Bolan.

Liu was rising as he caught the first burst, swinging around his .45ACP pistol. The six rounds that struck his chest and gut knocked him back into his seat as he leveled the pistol. The Hong Kong crime lord triggered his handgun twice, the reports sounding like a cannon in the confines of the room. The shots flew wide as more of the submachine-gun rounds drilled into him.

Liu’s jigsaw face disappeared in a splashing wave of crimson and flying bone chips as a 3-round burst smashed into his head. The force of the 9 mm bullets bounced him off the back of his seat and he pitched forward, a bloody ruined mess sprawled across his desk.

Blood gushed across the flat expanse of the table top and spilled over the edges to stain the thick carpet burgundy. As he tumbled forward, Liu’s hand jerked on the trigger and the pistol fired one last time.

The .45ACP round burned across the office and struck the submachine-gunner in the thigh, causing the man to crumple and almost fall. Blood spurted bright against the dark material of the hit man’s pants. He looked up from behind his balaclava mask and tried to bring the mini-Uzi back under control.

Bolan’s single pistol shot from off to the side and just behind the wingback chair took the assassin in the temple. The man’s head snapped sharply on his neck, and blood spurted from the wound as a red halo appeared behind his ruined skull.

As the first hit man fell, Bolan’s perception of time caught up with his adrenaline and everything began to unfold in fast forward. The gunman folded at the waist, his submachine-gun bouncing off the carpet. From behind him the shotgun-wielding killer charged into the room. The man moved in with the Remington 870 held out in front of him, the weapon’s stock tight against his shoulder.

The cavernous muzzle of the 12-gauge swept the room for a target. Bolan stepped forward and kicked his heavy chair across the room. The hit man tried to swivel as he caught the motion, and the barrel of the shotgun dipped as the shooter instinctively drew down on the object. The chair bounced off the floor and struck him in the shins, causing him to stagger, one hand slipping off the shotgun.

Bolan fired three times in rapid succession on semi-auto. His rounds burrowed through the flesh of the second hit man’s throat to pulverize his spine.

The gunner fell, and Bolan dropped to one knee as he shifted aim with the Beretta 93-R. The third hit man was already entering the room, his arms extended straight out in front of him and his hands filled with blazing automatic pistols. Bullets passed harmlessly through the space where Bolan had been standing, whizzing over his head.

The soldier’s pistol barked and the face showing in the balaclava mask became a gaping red gash. The dead man’s momentum carried him farther into the room until his feet tangled up with corpses of his crew and he pitched forward, his head rapping against the floor.

Through the ringing in his ears Bolan heard angry shouts from the hallway. He knew there was no way that members of the Shimmering Raindrop Triad would believe that he’d had nothing to do with the death of their warlord. They’d shoot first and ask questions later.

Bolan quickly crossed to the desk and grabbed the picture of the individual Stony Man had thought was Scimitar. Whether Liu’s reaction was an indication that his intelligence was wrong or that Scimitar was simply cagey, Bolan had no way of verifying at the moment.

He stuffed the picture into the pocket of his jacket, yanked open a desk drawer and plucked the envelope full of cash he’d given Liu for the information. He saw a little black address book and took that, as well.

As he shoved the book into his pants’ pocket, he heard a rush of movement outside of the door and dropped behind the desk. The slap of footsteps became muffled on the carpet, and he stood out of his crouch. A Chinese gangster with a ponytail and an M-4 carbine held at port arms stood in the doorway, stunned by the carnage. Bolan took him down with a single Parabellum round.

Hearing more shouts from the hall, the Executioner spun and tried the door set in the back of Liu’s office. It was locked. He shifted the fire selector switch to 3-round-burst mode.

Checking first to ensure that the hinges were on the other side of the door, Bolan fired two bursts into the wood around the polished silver handle. The knob burst apart, and the soldier kicked the door open before darting through the opening.

As he passed into a small antechamber at the foot of a short staircase, an automatic weapon cut loose behind him. A storm of bullets cracked into the door frame.

Bolan twisted in the cramped space of the stair landing and thrust his pistol around the corner of the door, triggering two bursts of blind harassing fire, hoping to drive back the triad gunmen. He pulled his hand back and sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time, soaking in his environment on the run. Liu’s private access stairs were plush and well lit. Bolan’s pounding footsteps were absorbed almost completely by the thick, luxurious weave of the carpet. He could see the top of the stairs just ahead and the teak door to the right of the next landing. Before going on, he dropped the clip from the Beretta and rammed home a fresh one.

The door from Liu’s office had swung shut behind him, and Bolan heard it slam open. He whirled and leveled the Beretta, tracking for a target. Below him on the stairs a wild-eyed triad gunner leaped through the doorway, an MP-5 submachine-gun in his fists.

The 426 screamed and lifted the weapon. Bolan stroked the trigger on the Beretta 93-R, putting a burst just to the left of the thug’s sternum. The gunner buckled at the knees and pitched forward, triggering a burst into the carpet on the stairs.

Knowing the Red Pole had to have fielded numerous 426s in defense of the pit, Bolan spun and continued racing back up the stairs. He bounded to the top and tried the door. It was locked, but this time he could see the lock on his side of the door. He worked the latch and pushed through. His plan was fluid. From the harbor he would make his way to Ladder Street. Once he had climbed that steep incline he’d make his way to Tak Ching Road and begin extraction procedures.

Questions swirled in his mind. Had that hit been a triad business dispute? Had Bolan been the target? Or had it been designed to keep Liu from talking to him?

The Executioner moved through the door and stepped into a crowded kitchen. The room was big and white, and filled with staring Chinese cooks and busboys alerted by the gunfire on the stairs. They shouted in fear and began to scramble over one another in panicked efforts to escape.

Sensing no threat, Bolan cut through the kitchen, heading for a swing door set in a far wall. He followed close behind two teenage dishwashers who were running screaming through the exit just steps ahead of him. Bolan burst into a crowded restaurant filled with stunned Chinese couples and a smattering of Occidental tourists.

He raced up an aisle between semiprivate booths, heading for the front door of the restaurant. He caught a flash of motion and tried to turn. A lithe 426 in a heavy leather jacket leap toward him from around a decorative support beam, a long-bladed knife naked in the snarling man’s fist.

Blocking the wild thrust with the hand holding his Beretta, Bolan twisted at the waist, diverting the man’s energy. The triad gunner was tossed around Bolan’s center of gravity and crashed into a deserted table, spilling bowls of steamed noodles and Kung Pao chicken. The man’s blade sliced a six-inch shallow wound along Bolan’s arm, splitting the sleeve of his jacket.

The pain was sharp and intense and his clothes were soaked with blood, but the wound was superficial and Bolan was able to raise the Beretta. The 426 twisted smoothly as he slid across the table, recovering with the agility of a cat.

A slim dagger flew from the thug’s hand and tumbled smoothly. Bolan managed to jerk his head to one side as the knife spun past him and stuck in the support beam, pinning a narrow silk painting to the lacquered wood.

Bolan’s finger was already on the trigger as he ducked, and the Beretta spoke once. Avoiding the knife throw pulled the soldier’s aim and the rounds meant for the heart punched through the gangster’s upper abdomen instead.

The man shrieked at the sudden agony and Bolan put a second burst under his jaw, silencing the knife fighter before turning and running toward the front door of the restaurant. He could see a knot of panicked people blocking the entrance. Desperate men and women clawed at one another to escape as a tight group of 426s attempted to punch and kick their way into the restaurant. A tall 426 gunner fighting through the doorway recognized Bolan. The man’s eyes widened in the shock and he raised his Type-64 Chinese submachine-gun.

Civilians screamed and parted like the sea in front of the 426 death squad as the man unleashed a blast of 7.62 mm rounds. Bolan turned and dived backward over the corpse of the knife fighter as the submachine-gun began to chatter.

Bullets chased Bolan, 7.62 mm slugs tearing into the dangling feet of the 426 knife fighter’s corpse. As the Executioner rolled over the table and landed in the next aisle, the 426 he’d killed soaked up more submachine-gun rounds.

Bolan hit the ground, rolled over a shoulder and came up with the Beretta in a two-handed grip. He put the sights on the submachine-gunner and drilled him with a neat 3-round burst. The man fell and Bolan shot the man standing directly behind him. The third 426 staggered backward as the weight of his dead brother in arms pitched back into him. He fired a sloppy shot that sang wide and tried to turn and run. Bolan’s next triburst struck the gunner in the neck, knocking him into the street.

Bolan struggled to his feet, reloading on the run. He passed huddle knots of terrified people who watched his rapid progress with wide, unblinking eyes. He stepped over the sprawled corpses of the men he’d shot and left the restaurant to emerge onto a quiet street. No cars moved on the thoroughfare. He could discern no sound of approaching sirens. No other Triad soldiers rushed him. The third 426 he’d killed lay in the gutter.

Bolan lowered the smoking Beretta to his side and jogged across the street. He had rented a nondescript Isuzu Rodeo at the airport under his cover name and parked it several streets over. Once he was at his rendezvous point on Tak Ching Road he’d prep for exfiltration.

The scream saved him.

He heard the angry cry and flung himself flat in the middle of the street. Even as he hit the ground shards of gravel kicked up from the road as bullets slammed into the street all around him. He heard the high chatter of a submachine-gun and caught the muzzle flash blinking out of the darkness at the mouth of the alley.

He saw the shrieking 426 walking toward him, eyes narrowed into slits like an angry cat’s, the Type-64 bucking wildly as the man fired from the hip. Behind the gangster two more triad soldiers, each armed with twin Beretta 92-Fs, spilled out onto the street.

Bolan rolled up onto his left side and swung out his right arm, triggering the Beretta. His rounds cut into the crazy 426 just under the man’s bucking submachine-gun, ripping open his stomach. The man staggered to one side and fired his weapon into the ground. He stumbled then went down, dropping his weapon to the street.

The two 426 gunners behind him stood their ground, side by side, each man blazing away with the 9 mm Beretta pistols they held in either hand. Bolan sighted in on one, moving too fast for anything other than instinct, and drilled the man through his open, screaming mouth.

The gangster’s head jerked and a bloody halo framed his head as he pitched over backward. The triggerman beside him stopped firing as his partner went down. His face registered horror, and he thrust out his arms as he began to run back into the cover of the alley, his pistols belching flame and lead in a sporadic, indiscriminate pattern.

Bolan drew down on the man and put a burst into his torso under his waving arms. The man shook with the impact and staggered, then went down like a tree in a high wind. His pistols fell from slack fingers and clattered on the pavement.

The Executioner pushed himself up from his prone position, weapon at the ready. He shuffled backward across the street, his eyes scanning the restaurant and alley for even the slightest hint of hostile movement. He made it across the street and onto the sidewalk, then turned and sprinted down a small side street, putting solid cover between himself and the battlefield.

The CIA would be unhappy about a back door source into the People’s Republic CCI being shot to pieces, but Bolan could legitimately argue that it hadn’t been his fault. Gangsters killed off one another on a frequent basis. The higher the profits at stake, the more likely violence became.

Jigsaw Liu worked a dangerous profession but Bolan didn’t believe in coincidences. It was a very real likelihood that Liu had been silenced because of him, which meant his mission was compromised from the very beginning.

The Executioner would be leaving Hong Kong with unanswered questions.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Bolan took a commercial flight into Zagreb International Airport.

He navigated the transglobal route with an almost mechanical competency. Weapons and identification were dumped with the CIA in Hong Kong after he made one report to the case officer and a second one to Stony Man. A layover in Manila was followed by a connecting flight to Bangkok, Thailand. In Thailand he destroyed his papers and obtained new ones from a dead drop in an airport locker.

Under his new papers he flew out of Bangkok and into Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. There he noticed a marked increase in Westerners in both the airport and on his own flight to Izmir, Turkey.

In Izmir, Bolan used a safehouse to shift identities once again while he waited during a four-hour layover for a flight into Zagreb on Turkish Airlines. At the safehouse he was able to utilize secure communications to catch up on the progress Encizo and James had made so far. After a nap and a shower, Bolan was in the air to Croatia.

As the plane veered into its runway approach, Bolan was able to see the gleaming ribbon of the Sava river just to the south of the city. Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, was situated between the southern slopes of the Medvednica Mountains and the north bank of the Sava river. The commercial flight touched down and Bolan was able to sail through customs with his immaculate paperwork and only a small carry-on to check.

Outside the modern terminal Calvin James and Rafael Encizo waited for him in the passenger pickup area. The two Stony Man commandos greeted Bolan like old friends and the three “representatives” of North American International climbed into their waiting Ford Excursion.

“That beard’s coming in nice,” Calvin James said with a smile.

“Thanks. It itches like hell,” Bolan replied. “You wait, once we finish dealing with Mirjana you’ll get your chance.”

After sliding into the shotgun seat, Bolan saw immediately that the Excursion was a diplomatic special, possibly left over from the days of violence in the former Republic of Yugoslavia. Such a vehicle would be outfitted with upgraded communications, executive armor, a more powerful engine than factory stock and concealed compartments for prohibited equipment such as weapons or surveillance devices.

Encizo pulled the big SUV into traffic and headed northwest out of the village of Pleso toward the congestion of Slavonska-Držićeva Avenue some fourteen kilometers away.

“How was you flight, Mack?” Encizo asked from behind the vehicle’s steering wheel.

The stocky, square-faced Cuban commando was an experienced underwater warfare specialist and urban operator who had cut his teeth in anti-Castro actions before joining the Stony Man team.

“Good enough, though I was feeling about as incognito as a circus clown on some of my flights out of Hong Kong.”

James snorted his laughter from the backseat. “Hell, try being us being here if you want difficulty blending in.”

Bolan smiled and nodded. Such problems had been a consideration when he’d chosen how to staff the operation. While he’d almost picked others from Phoenix Force, Bolan had finally decided that what was a hindrance for the minor action in Croatia would become an advantage once the team reached Baghdad.

“You have trouble with Mirjana because of that?” Bolan asked.

Encizo shook his head. “No, he bought it completely that we were purchasing agents for North American International. We played up the whole running-wild-on-an-expense-account thing.”

“Sounds like you had more success than I did,” Bolan noted. In precise, clipped details he ran down the events that had unfolded in Hong Kong and Jigsaw Liu’s final words.

Encizo let out a long, low whistle as Bolan finished describing what had happened in the Hong Kong pit.

“Scimitar’s a lie?” James asked. “Does that make sense?”

“Only in context,” Bolan said. “Unfortunately, we don’t understand that context.”

Encizo steered the Excursion down an off-ramp and exited onto the modern expressway that encircled the city. From the expressway Bolan could look out and see the most notable landmarks of Zagreb’s skyline: the Euro, HOTO and Cibona towers. On the expressway Encizo began to speed toward the northwest corner of Zagreb.

“Well, Mirjana is the real deal,” James said.

“He offer you weapons?” Bolan asked.

“Yep, get this. Once I made my introduction and gave him the information for North American International, he verified our employment with the company through standard channels.”

“Typical.”

“Sure, Gary’s people vouched for us no problem. But then the Croatian government asked for information on the company from the State Department as a ‘diplomatic favor.’ Gary has his network security tied into Stony Man. Aaron said he was able to detect an info-snatch worm originating from the HIS that cracked our cover personnel files and North American International’s authorization package to operate as a private military contract company in Iraq.”

“HIS?” Bolan grunted. “No one told us Mirjana was that well connected.”

The HIS, Hrvatska Izvestajna Sluzba, or Croatian Intelligence Service, was the youngest agency in the former Yugoslavia republic’s espionage community. It had been first commissioned in the winter of 1993 and dealt exclusively with the collection and analysis of foreign intelligence for coordination and dissemination to other branches of the Croat government and intelligence community.

As the majority of information collected by the HIS was utilized through the office of the president and his closest advisers on the cabinet, their involvement with Mirjana was potentially ominous.

“Apparently this is news. Aaron doesn’t want to share what this proves with the DNI because he’s afraid that once the Agency finds out, they’ll call Mirjana off-limits and try to exploit him,” James said.

“Oh, we were here first,” Bolan said. “That crooked Syrian bastard al-Kassar might have a pass for now, but Mirjana is all ours.”

“That’s what Barb says, too,” James agreed. “Hal’s going along with it for now. Part of the confusion is that we aren’t really able to tell where Mirjana pulls his arms from. It isn’t Croatian stocks except in small numbers.”

“I thought he was initially an executive with RH-Alan?” Bolan questioned, referring to the infamous Croatian arms company.

“He was, until 2000. Made his millions off government contracts during the conflicts, then he retired. Most intelligence reports had him figured for getting his supplies through them.”

“Looks like they figured wrong,” Encizo said. “Either way, we can purchase light or heavy infantry weapons, parts for armored personal carriers, including the electronics for cutting-edge systems, night-vision equipment and engineering explosives. He hinted he could go larger, but we really didn’t have a reason to be asking about laser-guided bombs. Still, most of the stocks are not Croatian armed forces mainstays.”

“He didn’t ask why you need black-market weapons with a U.S. government license to operate?”

“We told him there were restrictions we wanted to circumvent on numbers and types of munitions. He saw a sale and greed did the rest.”

Bolan nodded. “Betting on greed usually works.”

“Only to a degree in this case,” James said. “He flatly refused to discuss anything beyond business transactions. If we want information from him, we’re going to have to take it.”

“That’s not a problem,” Bolan said.

K ARL M IRJANA’S SPRAWLING estate sat nestled in a gentle saddle among the foothills of the Medvednica Mountains. In some ways it reminded Bolan of Stony Man Farm, with a large dacha-style main house, attached garages and numerous outbuildings. One of the structures was a luxurious hunting lodge—set at the edge of the estate on the woods leading to the southern slopes of the mountains—where Mirjana was known to conduct his business. A small paved airstrip was set on a patch of level ground on the river side of the estate.

Just beyond the airstrip Mirjana’s property abutted a bend in the river. A two-story yacht was moored to a man-made jetty of boulders that sheltered the craft from the river current.

James and Encizo had done preliminary reconnaissance of the Mirjana estate. The man’s defenses were considerable and appeared left over from the 1995 battles with Serbian forces: ground surveillance microphones, electronic sensors, commercial alarms and land mines along certain approaches.

Mirjana kept a small cadre of former members of the Serbian Special Police Units, the SMJ, as bodyguards. It was at first confusing why a Croatian arms dealer would be using Serbian commandos who had been accused of war crimes against his own people.

On further reflection it made a certain, cynical sense. Serbs were a minority in Croatia. Former Serb military veterans were hated and the SMJ most of all. The social animosity kept Mirjana’s private army isolated and thus loyal to him. He paid them well, they lived in luxury and were kept busy.

In addition to duties as security for shipments, action as bodyguards and sometime strike force for underworld disputes, the ex-SMJ troopers served as estate sentries. Armed with modern weapons and equipment, they patrolled the interior of the property and responded to any alarms or other disturbances.

Bolan sat in a rest area just off the northern expressway where it turned into a more rural highway. From that position the Stony Man team could overlook the entrance to Mirjana’s estate. Behind it the Sava ran in an almost perfectly straight diagonal line up toward the northwest.

It was night, and lights from Mirjana’s estate cut through the dark to illuminate expansive lawns and the purple tree copses on the mountain slopes behind it. At the front gate a sentry worked a brick booth, controlling entry.

Bolan lowered his night-vision binoculars.

“These are good,” he said.

“I thought it would be ironic if we took him down using equipment and weapons he’d sold us as part of our preliminary package,” James said.

Bolan smiled. “All this gear is from him?”

“Yeah. He took us to a warehouse in Pleso to show off his selection. We pulled exactly what we needed off the shelves. It was like Home Depot, dudes with electric forklifts and everything,” James said.

“When’s my meeting?” Bolan asked.

“About thirty minutes,” James replied.

“And he always does his business meets in the hunting lodge?”

“He claims it’s easier to ensure his electronic countermeasures are working against surveillance,” Encizo stated. “Like I told you, he even has an airport metal detector in the entrance hall.”

“I doubt you can get a piece in,” James said.

Bolan nodded. “I don’t intend to. I’ll rely on you two to shut the place down. I’ll keep Mirjana busy until you get in, Cal,” Bolan replied.

The two Phoenix Force commandos had thought Bolan’s plan for the Mirjana takedown risky. They were men used to danger, and Stony Man missions were run on extraordinarily narrow margins to begin with, but the news that Mirjana was tied into the Croatian government had changed everything for Bolan.

A straight assault could result in a distress alert making it out. The Stony Man commandos could find themselves trapped in the compound with SMJ killers while a Croatian government rapid-response force surrounded them, a diplomatically unacceptable situation. Smuggling their own weapons into the estate was also unfeasible due to Mirjana’s extreme security precautions.

Bolan had instead decided on a multipronged strategy. He would meet with Mirjana as the top purchaser of overseas acquisitions for North American International. The man who could sign the checks for big orders. Once Bolan was in proximity to Mirjana and could control his movements, Encizo and James would begin their assignments.

Encizo would approach from the Sava River and provide security overwatch across the lawns between the hunting lodge and the rest of the estate. He would neutralize any reinforcements moving to assist their boss.

James would infiltrate across the estate and bring in the weapons to secure the lodge. With Mirjana under wraps and Encizo providing security, the two men would begin their interrogation of the Croat arms dealer.

Bolan had brought hell with him to Croatia. He was about to introduce the Zagreb arms dealer to a fiery term of retribution.

Karl Mirjana had information the Executioner needed. Saying no was not an option.

CHAPTER NINE

The Stony Man team readied its gear and climbed into the Ford SUV. Bolan drove the Excursion now and he navigated through the outskirts of Zagreb, dropping James and Encizo at predetermined locations before heading directly toward Mirjana’s estate.

Headlights stabbed through the pitch darkness as Bolan rolled to a stop and switched them off for the first insertion. Calvin James, dressed in a sniper’s ghillie suit and armed with a Croatian-made APS-95 assault rifle, rolled out of the back of the vehicle and into the woods. The forest ran unbroken up into the southern foothills that formed the northern perimeter of the arms dealer’s remote estate and private hunting preserve.

Bolan pulled the SUV away from the spot and sped toward a secluded section of highway that ran next to the Sava River.

Outfitted in a neoprene drysuit, Encizo quickly disappeared into the low hedges along the riverbank, equipped with combat swimmer fins and a rebreather as well as an oilskin shoulder bag containing his long weapon and a silenced machine pistol. A double-edged dive knife was secured to the knotted muscle of Encizo’s calf and ankle.

Bolan was gone long before the Cuban-born commando had entered the water. With the members of his team deployed for their assault, the soldier guided the Ford Excursion back toward Karl Mirjana’s estate.

Bolan had dressed in upscale casual for his meet with the Croat. He wore sturdy but stylish khaki pants in black. Under his jacket he wore a crew-necked black pullover of expensive material and weave. He wore his Rolex Submariner watch and a pair of low-cut loafers with thick tread. The loafers were steel-toed and he hoped this would go unnoticed. Except for those steel caps he would be unarmed going into the death merchant’s lair.

After several minutes Bolan pulled off the main highway and took an unmarked paved private road. The long drive wound through several gentle curves cut through a dense copse. After nearly a full mile Bolan caught sight of the gate complex set across the road like a military checkpoint.

The fence was constructed of deeply red brick, ten feet high, and ran into the forest on either side. The heavy wrought-iron gate was electronically controlled, and heavy enough to resist ramming by even a semi-truck.

Bolan slowed as he approached the cinder-block gatehouse. Through the window he saw a tall man in blue coveralls rise from behind a desk. The black nylon pistol belt secured around his waist held a Glock handgun secured in the holster.

As the soldier stopped the SUV beside the gatehouse and powered down his window, the sentry came out, a telescoping metal pole with a mirror fitted on the end in his left hand.

“Mike Cooper, North American International,” Bolan said. “I have an appointment with Mr. Mirjana.” He wondered if the man spoke English, though the names should get the message across if he were expected.

The man nodded. “ Ja, moment.” His English was broken and accented but passable. “I check the vehicle. If you have weapons, I request you turn them me, now.”

Bolan grinned. “I’m clean.”

The sentry seemed to accept his word and focused on playing the mirror across the vehicle’s undercarriage. As he went about his security check, Bolan was able to get a better look at the pistol in the man’s holster.

Calvin James had been correct during his earlier briefing to Bolan. The Glock was a specialized model only available to military and police units. The Glock 18 fired 9 mm Parabellum ammunition and, like Bolan’s Beretta 93-R, could operate in either semiautomatic or 3-round bursts. The pistol had a 31-round extended magazine and a theoretical rate of fire in burst mode of 1200 rounds per minute.

Karl Mirjana was a serious man, which suited Bolan just fine. The Executioner was serious himself.

The sentry stepped back from the vehicle. “Follow road past the main house to left, ja? You drive all the way through the property to lodge where Mr. Mirjana meets clients. Do not get out of car. Security meet you at lodge. Go.”

The man stepped back inside the gatehouse and worked a button on his console. With the hum of powerful electric motors the gate unlatched and began to swing open. Bolan waited until the gate was fully open before driving through.

He did not wave at the man as he drove past.

W HILE B OLAN DROVE into the estate Calvin James circumvented the property and approached it from the rear. The going was tough. The woods were thick and the terrain steep. A former Navy SEAL, James had been in uncompromising physical condition before coming to Stony Man and still followed a grueling fitness program.

Despite his level of fitness, James sweated freely in the commercial camouflage suit. He scrambled up hillsides thick with brush and weeds, making his way around Mirjana’s estate toward the rear. He swept up the incline, sticking to patches of deep woods and using game trails so that as he made his final approach he was coming downhill toward Mirjana’s property.

As he neared the back of the estate James was forced to slow his approach. From his earlier reconnaissance he knew that a line of wild brambles and blackberry shrubs marked the beginning of Mirjana’s property line, set well before the wall that encircled the estate. The ex-Navy SEAL made his approach toward the brambles with trepidation.

Just beyond the brambles Mirjana’s security consisted of an array of spike microphones. Anyone thrashing through the brambles would be picked up on the hidden mikes and trigger an alarm response. Because of that James knew he would have to leave behind the relative invisibility offered by the ghillie suit.

James sank to the forest floor and quietly removed the camouflage. The loose patches and swathes of fabric that were so effective in breaking up the outline of a human body would only serve to snag and catch on the brambles and thorny blackberry branches.

Moving carefully, he crawled into the thicket on his elbows and knees, picking up thick vines and sliding under them, carefully dragging his weapon with the stock folded down behind him. He pulled a pair of garden clippers from a cargo pocket and carefully began to cut out a path.

Though he had purposefully chosen a section of bramble thicket that was in his opinion less dense than some other areas, it was still painstaking work. Every movement he made had the potential to be detected by the electronic sensors positioned on the other side.

Sweat rolled down his face. He pressed down slowly and steadily with the clippers to avoid the snipping sound common to his activity. Beyond the thicket and across a strip of tall grass Mirjana’s wall rose in an imposing barrier.

One thing at a time, James told himself. One thing at a time.

R AFAEL Encizo PURGED his regulator and slipped into the Sava river without disturbing the surface. The closed-system rebreather eliminated the telltale exhaust noise and bubble trail left by conventional Scuba gear and provided for a more silent diving experience.

Encizo felt the current of the deep river catch him up and sweep him along toward his target as he descended into the chilly darkness. His load-bearing harness was front-loaded, and the Phoenix Force commando compensated by adjusting buoyancy for that and the gear attached in oilskin to his back. He settled slowly down through the murky water and began to check his analog and digital displays. He would use the bottom to ensure depth consistency and a built-in pace counter to indicate the distance he swam.

Encizo kicked out gently with his swim fins, using the current to push him along and conserve energy. His breath echoed slightly behind his mask and visibility was less than an arm’s length in the polluted river water.

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